


Stop Crying and Twisting That Knife

by I_might_be_listening



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Madness, Murder, Random & Short, Short, Swearing, Weirdness, alternative, tw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 19:09:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5677252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_might_be_listening/pseuds/I_might_be_listening
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan is murdered one day and the guy who did it looks a bit like Dumbledore.<br/>Basically a trippy, weird fic made up of extremely short chapters which document Phil going mad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Things That Were Threatening to Happen

**Author's Note:**

> If you don't like violence or weirdness this might not be the best for you (it's not the most graphic thing ever but it does involve some gore and strange/depressive episodes).  
> Also I don't mean to imply that anything in this is real, or could be real, and I hope you enjoy this strange thing I wrote.

Dan Howell hated Mondays because they usually meant you had to get up (out of bed) and actually do things. This was annoying because, like most people on Monday mornings, he didn't want to do anything.  
Thankfully today wasn't a Monday so this was largely irrelevant to what was about to happen.  
It was in fact a Tuesday morning, bright and sunny at 10 O'clock. Phil was already awake (Dan could hear him singing in the shower) and the winter's chill in the air was only really noticeable if you opened a window. (Dan didn't.)  
He was just settling down onto the sofa with his laptop when the thing that was about to happen - which had indeed been threatening to happen all morning - began to happen. 

The doorbell rang. 

Dan awkwardly interrupted his backwards collapsing motion (onto the sofa) and headed to the door. He opened it and there stood a tall, very strangely dressed person. Dan stood still, shocked for several moments.  
This gave the person ample time to spring on Dan and whack him on the head with a long staff. Dan was knocked cold.  
The person then proceeded to stab Dan in the neck with a short, sharp knife.  
The person stood with the knife and watched him bleed for some time. 

Phil came down the stairs to find out why Dan was taking so long to answer the door. He was mildly surprised to see Dan on the floor and a person with a knife, but he wasn't really shocked because he hadn't quite realised what was happening yet.  
The person with the long staff and cloak and knife then stabbed himself through the eye. Phil passed out and landed on the floor with a heavy 'thwump.'


	2. There Had Been a Stabbing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't mean to imply that anything in this is real, or could be real.

After a while Phil woke up. The situation hadn't really changed because nobody had come into the hallway and seen the corpses.   
Phil went over to Dan and looked at him. His white shirt was crimson. His eyes were open and staring. His lips were very red and for a moment Phil wanted to kiss them.   
In a daze he checked for a pulse. There wasn't one - he was definitely dead. Phil already knew this of course, seeing as Dan's blood was all over the floor.  
The other person had not lost as much blood. Only one thick stream of red ran sluggishly from his eye. It puddled by his head and congealed in his snow-white hair. Phil noticed that the knife was still embedded in his face.  
Phil got out his phone and dialled 999. He asked for the police and gave the address. When they asked what had happened, he said there had been a stabbing.

After that Phil didn't know what to do while he was waiting for the police to arrive. He didn't really want to wait by Dan's corpse, but going back upstairs to his unfinished bowl of Lucky Charms was unappetising.  
He went downstairs to wait outside. Nobody was really around because it was midmorning on a Tuesday. If anybody had walked past, they would have stared at the bloodstains all over his t-shirt and on his hands and arms.

The police arrived. He heard them before he saw them because they had the siren going. He wondered why they were rushing seeing as everybody was already dead.   
A police officer with brown eyes and brown hair approached Phil. The officer said something to him but he didn't really hear.   
"They're upstairs," Phil commented to nobody in particular.  
Some other people went up the stairs. The policeman with brown eyes and brown hair smiled kindly at Phil and Phil started to cry.


	3. The Falling Feeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't mean to imply that anything in this is real, or could be real.

Phil never went back upstairs to the apartment because he was weak and he thought it would hurt too much.  
Instead, after he had stood outside in the street and cried, the policeman had taken him to the hospital where he was treated for shock. Then he went to the police station to be questioned. He cried most of the time, silently, but after a while he stopped. He stayed the night at Louise's house because she offered.  
The police came in the morning and he asked them who the person was who had killed Dan. They said there would be an investigation and Phil said he would cooperate.

Phil went to stay with his parents. He read a statement to a camera saying that he would be taking time away from YouTube and the BBC to grieve. He didn't say for how long.

He spent his time in bed, sleeping, to begin with. Then he mindlessly watched daytime TV. 

Two months passed. He tried to start feeling better about things so he forced himself to get up and eat and walk around. He went and bought some new clothes. He bought a lot of new things because his other things were in London. He avoided the Internet because he knew it would make him feel worse.

He hated the falling feeling in his stomach that came whenever he remembered what had happened.  
The police investigation rolled on and they asked him more questions. They often visited the house and sometimes he had to go to different places with them.


	4. "Aren't you going to leave?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't mean to imply that anything in this is real, or could be real.

One night Phil had a dream.   
He dreamt that he and Dan were sat on the sofa in the apartment. It was early evening and the sky was dusky purple outside the window.   
They were both looking at the computer on Dan's lap. Dan was reading out loud to Phil and laughter bubbled below the surface of his voice. He kept looking over at Phil to gauge his reaction to the story.

* * *

Phil woke up early that morning. He knew it was early because the room was grey, and the light is always grey and cold in the early mornings.  
Still, his bed was warm despite the cold against his face. He snuggled down into his duvet and tried to drift back into unconsciousness.  
To a certain extent, he managed it. He fell back into a half-waking, half-sleeping state and let his thoughts wonder.   
He remembered he had been dreaming of Dan.   
The last night before the thing had happened, and he remembered how Dan's eyes had sparkled in the warm yellow lighting and how he grinned until it looked like it must hurt his face, and how he had laughed out loud.  
It was a Harry Potter AU. It wasn't very well-written at all. They were in fits of giggles as Dan pretended to do all the different voices. Dumbledore’s was particularly amusing, a strangled gurgle with the occasional wheezing cough thrown in for effect.  
It was a good memory, and Phil clung to it as the morning chill faded from the air.

* * *

One day Louise came in to the house and said, "Aren't you going to leave? You've been here for months."  
Phil said he didn't really know what to do.

That day he followed the same routine he always followed. He got up at 7 O'clock and had breakfast. He went outside for a while. He came back in and watched TV. He talked to his parents, he cried, he watched some more TV and went to bed.   
For a while he also thought about leaving. He thought he might as well.

The next day he said to his father, "I think I'm going to leave."  
"Where are you going to go?" Asked his father.   
"Maybe London," Said Phil.  
His father said he had to stay a bit longer.   
"How much longer?" Asked Phil.  
"Fifteen years," said his father.


	5. Shut The Fuck Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't mean to imply that anything in this is real, or could be real.

One day Phil woke up, but he wasn't warm and comfortable. He was cold and the bed felt hard and the pillow was thin. There wasn't much light and he couldn't see anything.  
Phil got up and threaded a well-known path through the darkness. His hands met cold iron. He leant his head against the iron and cried. First he cried quietly but then he remembered how Dan used to smile at him and watch him when he talked. He started to sob.  
A voice sounded out of the darkness and told him to shut the fuck up.

* * *

The wind ruffled Phil's hair as he stood by the fence and looked at the cars passing on the road. Behind him some people were talking and moving around.   
The sky was bright blue like cornflowers and there was not a cloud in sight. Phil made sure to really check there weren't any clouds before he made that observation.   
He tried to imagine what Dan looked like on sunny days.   
Someone told him to stop crying and go inside.

* * *

Phil got ready for bed because it was getting dark. He looked for his parents to tell them he was turning in for the night but he couldn't find them.   
His bed wasn't the same as the bed at his parents' house but he ignored it.

* * *

"What is your name?"  
"Phil,"  
"And your surname?"  
"Lester."

There was a pause. Pen scratched on paper.

"How old are you, Phil?"  
"Twenty-eight,"

Another pause.

"Can you tell me where we are?"  
"Near Manchester."  
"Where specifically?"  
"My parents' house."

* * *

It was dark and Phil was crying. He was sobbing and saying Dan's name. He said the name over and over and wished more than anything that Dan was with him.   
He couldn't breathe. Someone twisted a knife in his stomach.

* * *

It was dark and Phil was crying. He remembered how he and Dan had filmed videos together and made weird jokes and watched Buffy in the evenings.   
Someone twisted a knife in his hand.

* * *

It was dark and Phil was crying. He saw Dan's face behind his eyes. He whispered he was sorry.   
He twisted a knife in his hand. A voice from the darkness told him to shut up.

* * *

One morning he got up and went to the iron bars. Louise was stood outside.   
"Louise," he said. "I think maybe I should leave now."  
"I'm not Louise," Louise said. "You can't leave until you've served your sentence."  
Phil went back to bed.

* * *

Phil woke up and asked someone what day it was. It was a Monday. Phil was like most people, and so, like most people, he didn't want to do anything because Monday was a horrible day.  
He stayed in bed until someone made him get up.  
He went outside and looked at the sky.

* * *

Phil woke up and asked someone what day it was. It was a Monday again.   
Silence hung in the air. It was autumn. Phil whispered that he was sorry.   
He wondered how many Mondays would be like this one.


	6. An Epilogue (Looking up at the Sky)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't mean to imply that anything in this is real, or could be real.

Rosie parked her car in the car park of Strangeways. She pulled her case notes out of the back seat and walked into the building.  
Today she felt quite motivated. She hoped that she would make some progress with her patients and maybe make a positive difference in someone's life. 

At lunchtime she went out for a jog in the mild autumn air. In the afternoon she spoke to one of the prison officers.  
"What about Phil Lester?" The man asked at one point. "He keeps calling Mary 'Louise'."  
Rosie sighed and rubbed her eyes.  
"He still thinks he's living with his parents, seeing the people he used to know. He doesn't remember what he did. It's a coping mechanism."  
"The other inmates get annoyed with his crying." Said the prison officer.  
"Maybe we should move him to a different cell." Said Rosie.  
"I'll have a think." Said the prison officer.  
There was silence for a while.  
Then the prison officer said, "How it possible is that he doesn't know he killed Dan himself?" He knew Dan’s name because it was the second most common word on Phil’s lips, after ‘sorry’.  
"He's constructed a fantasy to live by instead of the truth. He thinks there was another person who came in and killed Dan when he answered the door. Describes him as cloaked, with a long white beard and a staff." Rosie looked away.   
"Sounds like Dumbledore," the prison officer half-heartedly tried for humour.  
"Yeah," said Rosie.  
The prison officer left.

Rosie went to the window and looked up at the sky. She sighed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this! You're probably the only person who reached the end other than me in the entire universe! ;)   
> If you feel like it, I would love to hear what you think - constructive criticism is welcome.


End file.
